Chapter 10

With weak coughs and painful groans, Bo opened her eyes briefly. Her throat was in burning pain, and so was every inch of her skin. The extreme exhaustion almost made her black out again.

Sprawling and gasping hard, she tried to reach for her dagger. Even the slightest movement of her finger had become a great challenge. It took her four tries to even put her trembling fingers around the hilt, and three attempts to actually pull it out.

Finally having a weapon in her hand seemed to have given her some strength. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

Clenching her jaws tightly, she pulled her back away from the ground. Running over by a truck would have felt better than this. She thought as she used every bit of her energy to put herself in a sitting position.

Slowly, she let her backpack slide off her shoulder. With her flashlight between her teeth, she examined herself carefully, and was relieved that she didn't have any open wound or visible burn. She ran her fingers along her limbs, and found no broken bone either.

Then where is this damn pain coming from? She wondered as she threw her head back and bit back her groans.

The pain…it was from within. It was as if her soul was being torn into pieces.

She took a few deep breaths while fumbling with the things in her backpack. She took out a bottle of water, gulped it and coughed hard.

Oh how I wish I could have an orgy right now to rejuvenate… she thought as she tried to catch her breath.

Strangely, what came to her mind wasn't a group of naked, fully turned on hotties. It was the heated kiss between her and Tamsin. It was the gentle strokes on her cheek. It was the look in those light eyes….

Letting out a deep sigh, she reached for the next best thing: candy bars. She inhaled two Snickers bars, before she downed another bottle of water.

The chocolate bar, and the water, seemed to have boosted her stamina slightly. She wiped her lips as she scanned the surroundings.

She was enveloped by deep, thick darkness. Even the bright light of her flashlight wouldn't reach beyond 3 or 4 feet of distance. No matter where she had turned, she couldn't see anything but barren ground. There appeared to be no man made structure or vegetation, let alone anything that was alive or moving.

The ground beneath her looked like cooled lava. Above her, it was just darkness - no Hell's moon nor sun.

Biting back her groans, she stood up even though her legs were trembling. Vaguely, she saw some flickering flames a few yards away from her.

She limped over to take a look. She was at the end of the River of Flames, where the flames were dying down, becoming a thin trail of embers and cinders. The trail eventually blended into the cooled lava plain.

Bo stood there and stared at the flames for a while as she wondered how she had gotten here. She remembered being washed away by the pale flames that had come out of nowhere. They must have carried her all the way along the river and eventually washed her ashore.

She closed her eyes as she recalled the map she had seen. The symbol of the Dark Temple was to the northeast of the tail of the flame snake.

Northeast it is. She thought as she took out a small compass from her survival kit.

Before she headed off, she took out a Krackle bar. She smashed it without tearing the wrap open. As she took off, she would sprinkle a tiny amount of the crumbs on the ground beside her every once in a while.

Tamsin went to talk to several of her well-connected clients and some of her old acquaintances, but none of them had any idea how anyone without a soul would be able to reach the end of the River of Flames, let alone how to rescue a half Demon from there.

When she got back to her place, Bilith was already there waiting for her anxiously.

"You better have something," Tamsin said impatiently, "cuz I've got nothing."

"I might have found a way. I need your phone," Bilith replied as he hopped into her couch.

Tamsin tossed her phone to him without any hesitation. The little panther dialed a number with his front paw.

After two rings, someone picked up. "I've heard that you are looking for a way to reach the end of the River of Guilt," a low voice started. It sounded somewhat artificial, like it had gone through a voice changing software.

"Who is this?" Tamsin asked as she frowned at Bilith.

"My identity is of no importance as of this moment," the voice said slowly. "What you'll need is a guilty soul."

"There is no fucking way a guilty soul would be able to withstand the burn and reach the end of the river," Tamsin argued.

"You are right. That is why you'll have to carry the soul down the river without letting the soul touch the bottom of the river, until you reach a proper location."

"A proper location?"

"If you go down too far, the flow of the flames will not be strong enough to carry it to the end of the river. If you don't go far enough, the soul will be destroyed by the fire before it reaches the end of the river," the voice explained patiently.

"Let's just assume, for one second, that what you've said is true. How do you propose that I carry a soul down the river without letting it touch the bottom of the river, hmmm?"

"You'll need a Vas Animae."

Tamsin rolled her eyes. "Damn right I need a soul vessel! What a great idea! How could I have not thought of that? Could it be that those things are harder to find than a fucking rainbow pooping unicorn?"

"I happen to have a few, and I have already sent one your way," the voice replied.

Tamsin frowned again. "And the reason you are being so generous is…?"

"Because she is the most important," the voice told her.

Tamsin's frown got deeper. Then, she had a sudden revelation. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and smirked. "I know who you are," she announced, "you are one of them, the Order of the-"

"Now is not the time," the voice cut her off. "Once you receive the Vas Animae, use it to capture a guilty soul and travel to the release location. Once released, you have to mark the soul-"

"Yeah, yeah, I don't need you to tell me how to mark and track a damn soul, Heaven or Hell. Now where is this proper location?"

Bilith cleared his throat, before he stood up and placed her front paw on Tamsin's forehead.

A vision of the River of Flames came to her. It was as if she was traversing the river at a high speed. Then, she abruptly stopped at a turn, where three large, flat rocks stacked on top of each other. Right before the vision disappeared, she caught a glimpse of a pair of wings carved at the base of the bottom rock.

"Fine, but even if we do reach the end of the river successfully and we do find her, how the hell do we get her out of there? We can't just swim back."

"No, there is no way back from there. The only way out of there is to go forward."

"There is no forward at that point," Tamsin argued. "The forward would be deeper into the unknown territory of Hell."

"I beg to differ," the voice stated. "Bilith?"

The little panther stood up again and put his front paw on Tamsin's forehead.

The time, she saw deep, thick darkness, barren grounds and collapsed structures. She saw the ruins of dark halls, walls, and gates. Then, she saw a lake with blooming flowers.

She stumbled a little when the vision vanished. A fucking lake with flowers in Hell? That can't be right. She thought.

"After you reach the lake, jump in," the voice instructed. "Swim to the whirlpool in the center of the lake, and…the current will take you out of Hell."

"How-how do you even know all this?" Tamsin doubted.

"Many years ago, someone else had gone through the journey. The same person also marked the exact soul release location in the River of Flames," the voice answered. There was a hint of bitterness in it.

Tamsin let out a frustrated sigh. "And you are sure this would work?"

"It has worked before for many times," the voice assured her.

Tamsin turned away briefly as she combed her hair anxiously. Every instinct of hers was warning her that she should not trust a stranger on the phone, because everything the man had said sounded either insane or impossible. She should do more research before she would even consider the plan viable, but she just didn't have the time. Bo didn't have the time. The thought of the brunette suffering in the River of Flames or worse made her chest hurt so much that she couldn't think straight at all.

"Fine," she eventually agreed. "When will that damn vessel get here?"

Answered her was the ringing doorbell. With her loaded revolver in her hand, she took a peek through the peephole, before she cautiously opened the door. A wooden box was left at her doorstep, but whoever had delivered it was already gone.

She opened the box and found a jar inside. It was carved from a piece of limestone, about 8 inches tall. Its lid was a faceless head. Under the neck of the head, there were a few lines of spell inscribed vertically.

"Let's go," Bilith told her before he dashed towards the elevator. "I have already made some arrangements to smuggle you into Hell. We'll grab a guilty soul on the way. There should be plenty around the River of Flames."

Bo had no idea how long she had been walking in the suffocating darkness. When she finally started to see the ruins of walls and towers, she let out a smile of relief.

After having walked past a section of long, winding walls, she arrived in front of a small Temple.

She didn't recognize it at first, for it had withstood so much damage and looked nothing like what she had seen or what Bilith had shown her in the vision.

It was after she had entered the temple did she realize that this was the Dark Temple, for she had recognized the altar.

She ran out and examined the entrance again. This time, she had noticed that both trapezoid walls had collapsed. One of the pillars had fallen and broken into several pieces. The bas-relief of the winged creature that once had been above the entrance had fallen on the ground and crumbled. The only pillar that had remained intact stood there alone, witnessing the fall of the temple in silence.

She gaped at the temple entrance. This place felt totally different from the one she had entered. If the one she had entered had been a dark vortex, this one would simply be…dead and empty. She felt nothing coming from it, no energy, no mystery, nothing.

She cautiously stepped inside again, and checked the altar then the statue behind it. It was a winged female figure. Her face was soft and merciful. She was wearing a tiara, the same tiara Bo had seen on the woman in the coffin in the Ghost Chapel.

Bo moved closer to the statue and raised her head to examine its face while wondering if this was the same face of that woman in the coffin. However, she couldn't remember the woman's face.

Maybe it was a different woman. She thought as she recalled the black hole like eyes. This statue, too, had dark eyes made of gemstones, but they shimmered softly.

The wall behind the statue was heavily damaged. On the parts that were still standing, Bo saw lines of texts and some drawings. None of them looked like what she had remembered.

As she circled back to the altar again, she suddenly had a strange feeling, where the distant memory of her being in the Ghost Chapel overlapped with what she was seeing (and feeling) right now: the floating candles, the small bunch of fresh flowers on the altar, the eerie feeling that she was being watched….

Then, there came a brief vision, a vision of a trap door flashing in her mind.

Slowly, she got down on one knee behind the altar. She brushed the dust and rubbles away from the base, and there it was, a stone trap door. There appeared to have been a door pull, but it was nowhere to be found. Above the location where the pull was supposed to be, there was a sunk relief depicting a fine tooth gear inside a circle. The circle had a pair of open wings.

This must be where that symbol of the asterisk inside a circle had come from. Bo thought to herself as she gently brushed dirt and dust off the sunk relief.

Absent-mindedly, she traced her finger along the fine tooth gear. As she was doing that, a vague memory came to her. Somehow, she felt that she knew this pattern. She had seen it somewhere before. Maybe not exactly the same pattern, and maybe not even at this exact location, but she had definitely seen something very similar. She wondered if she had seen it in the Ghost Chapel, or even before that….

Too carried away, she didn't notice that a veil of light fog appeared outside the temple. It danced in the air like puffs of smoke. It gathered and formed shapes. Slowly, the fog turned into a four-legged beast, with the body of a lion and the head of a reptile. It arched its back, closing in on her.

"This better work," Bilith grunted as he stopped beside the River of Flames.

"Oh shut up. You've said that like a hundred times already," Tamsin scoffed as she took the limestone jar out of her backpack. Then, she uttered, "this shit better work."

"Now, we need a guilty soul," Bilith murmured as he searched among the plentiful souls that were wandering around. He eventually targeted a sobbing, long haired man. "That one."

Tamsin took a deep breath. She reached her right arm out and opened her fingers. With her eyes closed, she whispered a spell. The soul stopped sobbing briefly. He raised his head, looking a little surprised as he lit up and glowed for a second or two. Then, his head drooped in disappointment and he continued sobbing.

"Are we good?" Bilith asked, and Tamsin gave him a nod. She removed the lid from the jar, and pointed the jar to the soul she had just marked while chanting the spell inscribed on the jar.

As the last syllable left her lips, the jar quivered slightly, before a ray of light shot out. When the light touched the marked soul, it wrapped around the soul and pulled it into the jar forcefully.

Tamsin closed the lid. The faceless lid cracked and whined, assuming the face of the soul - a sobbing, long-haired man. Dimly, the inscribed spell under his neck lit up.

"Alright, let's go," Tamsin said as she carefully placed the jar into her backpack. She climbed down into the river bed, and Bilith jumped down beside her.

They hiked in silence. It took them about three hours to reach the turn with the three stacked rocks.

Tamsin got down on one knee and brushed the soot off the base of the bottom rock. There, she found the carving she had seen in the vision - a pair of hand-carved wings forming a "V" pattern. She pondered briefly, wondering who left the carving there.

Bilith came over and checked the carving too. "We are here," he confirmed. "Time to release the soul."

When Tamsin took the jar out, he nervously put his front paw on her shin. "You did mark the soul correctly, right?"

Tamsin snorted. "What kind of question is that?! Yes I marked the damn soul correctly.."

"And you are sure you'll be able to track it?"

This time Tamsin didn't even bother to give him an answer. She removed the lid and chanted the spell backwards. With a heavy jolt, the soul was thrown out.

The soul stopped sobbing as he stood there for a while in confusion. Then, he followed the river listlessly. After a few steps, he stopped, listening intently. Then, he resumed walking again, only to be interrupted again.

He started to shake, and his sobbing got louder. He mumbled apologies as he covered his face and started to cry. Eventually, he turned back. Right after that, he let out a shriek wail and disappeared.

Tamsin grabbed the panther by the back of its neck with her left hand and chanted as she raised her right hand in front of her chest. As she moved her hand in a circular motion, a shimmering vortex appeared. It quickly turned into a gate, and she threw herself and Bilith in.

Like jumping off a moving train, she tumbled and rolled. When she had finally stopped, she was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by deep darkness. The little panther landed on top of her, and he seemed a little groggy.

The soul that had led them here was only a few feet away. He was on the verge of being completely destroyed, and was screaming in pain.

Tamsin couldn't help but wonder if Bo had gone through the same pain, or if her soul had been scorched that badly. That thought brought a sharp pain to her chest.

"Come on, let's go," she commanded as she flicked the forehead of the little panther.

Bilith hissed softly as he pulled himself up. He took a whiff of the air, and his tail straightened.

"Hold on," he announced as he lowered his head and sniffed around. Eventually, he stopped at a spot. He sniffed it again before he beamed, "Krackel crumbs! It must be Bo! She must have left this here for me! This way!"

"What the fuck did I get myself into…" Tamsin groaned as she followed the little panther in haste.

Bo let out a painful cry as she landed on the ground on her back. In front of her, the fog beast lowered its head, ready to charge again.

It attacked her while she was trying to figure out how to open the trap door. She fought back, but any of her attacks seemed nothing but futile. The beast, made of fog, wouldn't take any damage from her dagger or her punches. Whenever she attacked it, it would disperse into thin smoke. Then, it would come together and reform its shape again. It just kept charging at her, tossing her into the air.

It didn't take her long to figure out that she had no chance of winning in this fight. She tried to escape instead, but the beast wouldn't let her. It chased after her, stopping her from leaving.

Other than launching her into the air, the beast didn't seem to be capable of hurting her physically. However, every time it touched her, it gave her chills and sucked her energy away. It made her feel down, depressed and sad.

She got weaker and weaker, but the beast didn't want to stop.

Bo gasped hard as she threw herself to the side, narrowly escaping from another charge.

Too exhausted and in pain, she started to see spots. Her fingers were too bruised to even hold her dagger now, and her back felt like it was broken. Her legs were so heavy, and so were her arms.

She suddenly started to wonder, what if she could never escape? What if the beast kept her here forever? What if…no one would come to save her? What would happen to her, after she was completely drained?

She forced herself to get up, and made another escape attempt. The beast dashed at her, pushing its nose to her stomach. Then, it threw its head up, launching her into the air.

She landed on her knees. The sharp pain crushed her. She dropped to the ground, panting hard.

Even the air was killing her now. The more she drew in, the darker her vision would get.

The beast charged at her again. Too weak to fight back or even run, Bo covered her head and closed her eyes.

However, this time, before the beast touched her, she was pulled into a warm embrace.

"Miss me?" Tamsin's voice came to her, full of teasing and with a hint of concern.

Bo collapsed into her arms. Overwhelmed by a sudden rush of joy, she buried her sweat-streaked face into the other woman's shoulder and gasped.

"The fog…the fog monster…" she choked. "The fog monster…I can't-I can't leave…."

"It's not fog. It's the remaining anguish of the destroyed souls," Tamsin explained as she helped Bo stand up. "The only purpose of its existence is to make you as miserable as itself."

"Am I not miserable enough?" Bo bit out as she put her arm around Tamsin's shoulder to support herself.

The fog beast dashed at them. This time, it was shoved away by another beast - a dark shadow with claws as sharp as daggers and a pair of glittering copper eyes.

"Is that…" Bo gaped.

"Go!" The dark shadow turned to her and hissed. It was Bilith's voice, only slightly deeper.

"No, I can't go…I need to…" Bo pointed at the Dark Temple weakly. "I need to check the crypt…I need to-there's a trap door. It must be-"

"We don't have time for that, Bo," Tamsin said firmly.

"But, we are already here," Bo argued. "The Book of the Dead…it could be down there!"

"Bo," Tamsin cupped her face with one hand. "Your soul has taken significant damage from the River of Flames. Even if that trap door does lead to the crypt, entering the crypt right now is not a good idea. We have no idea what might be down there. Let's get you outta here first. We'll come back some time later."

Bo wanted to protest, but after a series of coughs and gagging pants, she gave Tamsin a nod.

"Take her and go! I'll catch up!" Bilith growled at them, before he slashed the fog beast with his claws. The fog dispersed briefly, before it came back to the shape of a beast again.

A/N: Vas Animae is produced by Google translate from "Vessel of the Soul", yeah I tried...

There will be a ton of fluffy (and some explanation) in next chap.